This invention relates to an apparatus which can impart a desired spin or other characteristics to a ball shot by air pressure, and is particularly useful in the practical exercise of learning to hit a ball properly in table tennis, tennis as well as baseball.
In a conventional pitching apparatus for beginners and children which uses a rubber ball with or without fuzz, an air blower is employed to produce pressurized air for shooting the ball. In operation, the air carries the ball under pressure through a flexible hose which has a shooting end portion thereof formed into a circular loop. When the ball reaches the loop, the ball is imparted a centrifugal force, and finally the ball provided with either a drive spin or a slice spin is shot out of the mouth of the flexible hose.
In the above operation, the direction of the kind of spin imparted to the ball depends on how the loop is arranged, namely whether the mouth of the flexible hose is located at the upper portion or at the lower portion of the loop.
However, in such conventional apparatus, the loop portion of the flexible hose is held by a circular ring arm which can arrange the loop at merely two positions, namely at an upward winding position or a downward winding position, so that the apparatus can shoot the ball with merely two kinds of spins, namely a drive spin and a slice spin. It must be also mentioned that such conventional apparatus is not equipped with a mechanism which provides the rapid shifting or change of the formation of the loop.
Accordingly, in an exercise using the conventional apparatus, a batter can readily understand which spin an oncoming ball is given since the apparatus shoots the ball with only two kinds of spins and the shifting of the loop formation is conducted relatively slow, whereby such exercise cannot simulate the actual situation in a baseball game.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus which can resolve the aforementioned defects of conventional baseball practicing machines.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for shooting a curve ball which can be shot with a desired kind of spin.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for shooting a curve ball which can provide an optimal effect in the practicing of other ball games such as tennis and table tennis besides baseball.